Thanks for the info Dave .. hadn't heard of that .. I have filled the burnt hole in the PCB with superglue (building up layers) so now it should hold up OK .. before was running the risk of wearing away the track for the earth .

The drama didn't end there by the way .. when I put the reel back together I found the game wasn't paying out for 21 by player 2.
Checked the 1 point reel again to find it only had earth output when on 0.
Couldn't see any breaks in the tracks (other than the pad I had cut off) .. tried bending the contacts on the shoehorn that screws to the back of the centre cog, but no joy , so replaced it with one from a spare wheel I had.

Played a few games Ok then machine was dying in the middle of a game .. cleaned the motor run switch and now have played about 20 games (mostly in 2 player mode) and all is finally good.

So .. tomorrow will ring my cousin and finally get this machine out of here    so I will have room for my next project (WMS Gulfstream)